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Judge orders NYC Council district lines to remain in place for upcoming election
By
Brigid Bergin
Published May 8, 2023
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Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
By
Brigid Bergin
Published May 8, 2023
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The New York City Council district map will remain unchanged ahead of the upcoming June 27th primary election, a Manhattan Supreme Court justice ruled.
Manhattan State Supreme Court justice Ericka Edwards on Friday rejected a request from a group of Queens voters to halt the election and order the city to redraw the district lines.
Edwards issued her ruling more than a month and half after both attorneys for a group of Queens voters and the City Law Department met in court for oral arguments. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), which filed the suit on behalf of the voters, argued that the city used the wrong legal standard to determine “fair and effective” representation for racial and language minority groups when drawing new lines during the redistricting process last year.
AALDEF argued that the NYC Districting Commission failed to protect voters by not creating a new opportunity district for Asian American voters in the neighborhoods of Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park in Queens, areas that are home to a growing community of Indo-Caribbean and South Asian voters.
Instead, the organization argues that the Districting Commission split the community across three Council districts — 28, 29 and 32 — and diluted their ability to achieve effective representation of the community’s choice.
In her ruling, Edwards noted that she could only determine if the Districting Commission approved its final plan in a manner that violated legal procedures, was “arbitrary and capricious” or “affected by an error in law.” She could not weigh in on whether she agreed with the final map itself. She said the plaintiffs failed to make the case on any of those grounds.
“Although the court always endeavors to protect the rights of racial and language minorities against voting rights violations, here, Petitioners simply failed to demonstrate the merits of their claims,” Edwards wrote in her decision.
Additionally, she said she was persuaded by officials from the City Law Department, which argued that the lawsuit was filed too long after the final plan was certified and too close to the upcoming election.
Edwards also found that the Districting Commission did make an appropriate effort to balance the requirements for redistricting as set forth under federal, state and local law and that halting the election and forcing the Commission to redraw the lines would be too costly a burden to city voters and agencies.
Barring intervention from a higher court, the June 27th primary will proceed on schedule. That also means the prospect of two summer primaries, echoing the chaos of last year, is off the table, at least for now.
Jerry Vattamala, head of the Democracy Program for AALDEF and lead attorney for the petitioners, said they were disappointed in the court’s ruling. He also noted that the decision failed to address a key argument AALDEF made in their case, which was that the City Charter requires the Districting Commission to go beyond the floor set by federal law.
“It sets a bad precedent that the Districting Commission could simply say that they complied with the Charter requirements, and that's enough,” said Vattamala. “That's not what the Charter Revision Commission envisioned when they put this really strong language in there.”
Vattamala said they will decide within 30 days whether to file an appeal.
Tagged
new york city
City Council
Politics
Brigid Bergin
Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.
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